A woman was asked, “what is it that you do?”, referring to her profession. She replied, “I work for the Kingdom of God. I’m just disguised as a mail carrier."

This story came to mind a couple weeks ago as a result of a service project with the youth group. Several of our students participated in packing emergency food boxes at St. Mary’s Food Bank in Phoenix. Because of the size of the group, we determined that it would be best to rent a large passenger van for transportation. The morning of the project, I drove downtown to pick up the rental van. It was with a rental company I’ve used in the past. As one can expect, the pickup procedure was fairly routine. Once the paperwork was complete, I walked outside to assess the van's condition with one of the employees. The man who assisted with the routine walk around shared with me that he was sensing a call to ministry. Every time we assessed a new part of the rental van, he revealed a new part of his own story and faith journey. As a Youth Director and College Admissions Counselor working in other states, I’ve rented quite a few vehicles, but this was the longest vehicle walk around I’ve been a part of. To be honest, although I loved hearing about his story, I was getting worried about how long this pick-up process was taking as we were on a pretty tight schedule. Once the walk around was complete, I was handed the keys and drove off.

I was pleased when I went to return the van, this employee was still working the lot. He helped me with the check in process as he continued to speak about his faith journey. We had picked up the conversation from the morning. This man was once homeless, but now uses his position as a rental car lot attendant to share the life changing and life saving message of Jesus Christ. He tunes the car radios to Christian music stations. The rental lot is close to Sky Harbor Airport and gets a lot of business from travelers. He gets to share his and our Savior’s story of extraordinary love and grace to individuals and groups from across the country. He is a kingdom worker disguised as a rental lot associate. I’m inspired by his bold faith. May we too, be a people so courageous in the sharing of our own faith.